Conventional surgical patient positioners may be used for a medical procedures or surgical operations that require the joint or limb on the human body to be operated upon to be precisely and predictably positioned during such surgery including knees, knee replacement, fracture repair, as well as similar hand, foot, and ankle surgery. Optimum positioning requires a large range of positive positioning adjustments to be easily available so that the limb or joint to be treated is initially positioned and thereafter maintained in the desired position. Not only must such selected position be maintainable but also it is very important and often necessary that the limb be released and repositioned on demand during the course of the procedure to ensure optimum access thereby to require a variety of angular relationships for effective surgery.
However, conventional surgical positioners have disadvantages when trying to position patients having larger limbs, body parts and/or heavier, obese patients because these positioners may not attach beyond the side rail of an operating room table. In these instances, a separate extra-large positioning unit is utilized that as additional cost and expense. Accordingly, there is a need to provide a single, modular patient positioner unit with cost and space savings having facility for a medical procedure on the limbs on the left or right side of the body with only minor modification to the unit.
Moreover, surgical patient positioners are used by a facility repeatedly for ongoing medical procedures and require sterilization between such surgical operations. Conventional surgical patient positioning units, clamps and other assemblies have remote and/or inaccessible recesses and edges where human tissue and fluid may deposit that require additional time, costs and/or disassembly for effective sterilization. Accordingly, there is a need to provide a modular patient positioner unit with improved sterilization and reduced parts for use in medical procedures on the limbs of the left or right side of the body with only minor modification to the unit.